LES: This is the idea that spawned the entire story. God, this is the only thing I miss about puberty...

Chapter II: Hunger

Katara stared across the table in shock at her thirteen year old boyfriend.

She had just served lunch a few minutes ago, and Aang was all ready on his second helping of noodles. He was stuffing them in his mouth so fast that he didn't even have time to swallow properly. Instead, his cheeks were puffed out in an effort to contain the vast amount of food in his mouth, and noodles spilling out of his mouth.

"Um... Aang." Katara said slowly.

Upon hearing his name, Aang looked up, noodles still spilling from his mouth. With a few big swallows, he managed to get all the food down. "What?"

"There's plenty of food." Katara said. "You don't have to eat like you haven't eaten in the last week."

"Oh." Aang said, setting down his chopsticks. "Sorry. I don't know what's going on. I'm just really hungry."

"Oh, is that all?" Katara asked. "Because for a minute, I thought you had turned into Sokka."

"Well, then it's a good thing that thought only crossed your mind for a minute." Aang said. "Because I don't think you'd want your brother kissing you."

Katara snorted. "Okay, stop. That's just gross." She said. "About as gross as you inhaling those noodles like they are your last meal. Seriously, Aang, I think that you just ate a week's worth of food in a few minutes."

"I'm sorry." Aang said. "I don't know what's going on. I'm just... hungry all the time. It's like I can't I can't get full no matter how much I eat."

"Dude, Katara, just let him be." A third person joined the table. The two rolled their eyes as Sokka sat down and began serving himself enough food that it dwarfed the amount of food on Aang's bowl. "It's just a normal part of being a teenager. The boy is growing. He needs more food so he doesn't stay a little shrimp forever."

"Gee, thanks Sokka. Nice to know that you think of me as just a little shrimp." Aang said sarcastically.

"Hey, it's not my fault that you refuse to eat muscle-building foods like meat." Sokka said, digging into the only foods on the table that Aang had not touched, the meat. "Meat builds muscles. Everyone knows that."

"Apparently it doesn't help your brains very much." Katara said jokingly, and she and Aang laughed.

"Sure, make fun of me all you want. You're just jealous." Sokka said proudly, stuffing food in his mouth even worse than Aang.

For the rest of the meal, Katara entertained herself by playing a one-sided game of footsies with Aang, smiling shyly while she ran her foot up his calf, and laughing as he choked on his food every time her foot began to creep past his knee.

Several minutes later, their lunch was interrupted by a knock at the door and Aang, probably eager to get away from Katara and her wicked foot, volunteered to get up and see who was at the door.

He got up and rushed to the door, thinking that it was some sort of urgent Avatar business. It had been entirely too long since something bad had happened, and he was overdue. However, when he opened the door, it was just a really confused looking man from a local food place.

"Um... yeah..." The man began. "We got an order for a ton of food from the Avatar, but we figured it was just a prank." The man gestured to the boxes and boxes that he had stacked behind him, a lot of expensive food. The delivery man explained the situation, that they had prepared all this food for the Avatar before their boss had stopped them, telling them that the Avatar couldn't have ordered it, and now they didn't know what to do with all this food, and they didn't want to just throw away an afternoon's work.

Aang rolled his eyes. "I'll take it anyway." He said, paying the delivery man an unholy amount of money and apologizing for the trouble. He was really lucky that, because he was the Avatar, he rarely had to pay for anything so that he could save up his money for monstrous expenses like this. Thankfully, he also had a team of helpers who were willing to carry the vast amount of food into the house for him.

He left them to their work and walked back into the kitchen, carrying a single take-out box as proof. "Who was it, Aang?" Katara asked.

"It was another prank food delivery." Aang said, setting the box down on the table. "There are about a hundred more of these boxes being stored away now."

"Oh man, again? Bad luck." Sokka said.

"Thankfully they knew it was a prank." Aang said. "But it was okay; I paid for the boxes anyway."

"Why would you pay for a fake food delivery?" Katara asked. "I know that we get a lot of stuff free, but we do need that money!"

"Don't worry, I've got it covered." Aang said. "The one who made the prank order will pay me back."

"Any ideas?" Sokka asked. "That sounds like a Toph thing to me."

"Maybe, but Toph would probably be smart enough to not only avoid ordering from a place that I love to go to and are well aware of my eating habits... but would also be smart enough to not order any meat in my name." Aang opened the box, revealing that it was, indeed, an assortment of different meats. "I don't eat meat! Thank the Spirits that the manager knew I didn't eat meat and stopped them. And who would be dumb enough to order a hundred boxes of meat in my name?"

As one, Aang and Katara glared at Sokka. He stared back at them, glancing between their disapproving eyes before he cracked under Katara's glare. "Hey, I was forced to desperate measures! You never get enough meat for me, Katara! All because of veggie-boy here!"

"Sokka!" Katara yelled.

"No, it's all right, Katara." Aang said. "I said that he'd pay, and he will. Don't you remember that since you're basically working for me, I'm in charge of how much money you get for the work you do in my name?"

Sokka's face fell. He had obviously forgotten. Katara smiled smugly.

"So, I'll just be taking the money I normally would give to you and using it to pay our food bills for the next month." Aang said casually. "Hey, Katara, I'm still really hungry. Do you think that fancy new place in the upper ring is still taking reservations for tonight?"

"For the Avatar, definitely." Katara said, smiling.

"Well, I definitely think I'm in the mood for some of the most delicious... expensive food in Ba Sing Se tonight." Aang continued. "We could both go... make a date of it. And we can order whatever we want."

"It is awfully expensive Aang." Katara reminded him playfully.

"Price is no object." Aang said. "It's on me tonight... well; actually, it's on Sokka."

Sokka let out a sound that sounded something like "Meep!"

"Then I'll go get ready for tonight. Love you, babe." Katara said, kissing her boyfriend soundly, and drawing another angry sound from Sokka.

"Oh, Sokka... one last thing... you're not eating anything else until all that meat is gone. And I mean all of it." Aang said firmly. He started walking away to go send a message to the restaurant that he wanted a table for two for that evening (which he would get after the host bumped two nobles down the waiting list to make room for the Avatar and his girlfriend.)

Sokka sat frozen where he was. He was not worried about Katara eating away his pay. The girl ate like a bird. But with Aang eating enough food to rival Appa, he was sure that he was about to become very... very broke.

He was about to celebrate that at least he had his meat, when he realized that he only had a few hours at the most before it started to go past its prime, and he wouldn't put it past that evil Avatar to make him eat the meat anyway.

Groaning with resentment, Sokka went off to get his new lunch.

LES: Ha-ha. Aang proves that he's even more evil then Sokka. And that, children, is why you never prank your boss! Best part of being a teenager in my opinion... being able to eat all the time. Eating is one of life's pleasures, and when you're a teenager, you don't need an excuse to eat your weight in food every week.